Editor's Note:
Rolling Out the Welcome Mat

Sue De Pasquale

It's been 25 years since Hopkins students have had the chance to
see their university president open his front door and come out
to get the morning paper. That should change in a few months,
however, when Hopkins's new president, Bill Brody, and wife Wendy
take up residence in Nichols House on campus. (To be fair, the
fitness-minded Brody is more apt to be seen rollerblading around
the President's Garden than shuffling across his front walk in
bathrobe and slippers.)

No Hopkins president has opted to live on campus since Lincoln
Gordon stepped down in 1971. But Brody, whose strong ties to the
Medical Institutions in East Baltimore are already well
established, wanted to send a message: namely that he and his
wife intend to become an integral part of campus life at
Homewood. And what better way to do that than to put yourself
where the action is? "One of my goals is to improve the quality
of life on and around campus," he told me. "By being here we can
get a better sense of what changes might be needed."

The Brodys inherit a home with a colorful history. The stately
two-story Georgian house came to be in the late 1950s, when
trustee Thomas Nichols was trying to woo Milton S. Eisenhower to
Hopkins. Eisenhower told Nichols he had always lived in a
president's house, first at Kansas State and then at Penn State.
"Fine," said Nichols. "I'll build you one." And that's exactly
what Nichols did, commissioning a slightly scaled-back version of
"Rolling Ridge," his own sprawling home in the Greenspring
Valley.

Eisenhower moved in in 1959, bringing with him his longtime
housekeeper Margie Morgan; her husband, Charles; and their pet
monkey (which spent most of its time in the basement, but was
occasionally spotted swinging from the trees in the backyard.)
Eisenhower had a light out front that he used as a form of
invitation; when it was lit, students knew they were welcome to
drop in on the widower for an evening of informal conversation in
the library--which many of them did, regularly.

Unfortunately, Eisenhower's successor did not have such a good
rapport with his student neighbors. At one point during Gordon's
brief and turbulent tenure (1967-71), students took to angry
protest on the front steps of Nichols House over a drug bust in
the dorms. When Steven Muller came to Hopkins in 1972, two
preteen daughters in tow, he and wife Margie thought it prudent
to find a less public setting for their family, so they settled
in Timonium. Bill and Nancy Richardson bought a house near
campus, in Guilford.

In the intervening years, Nichols House has served as a
bed-and-breakfast for important visitors (including a wildly
carousing Boris Yeltsin), a site for staff offices, and as a
movie set; in The Seduction of Joe Tynan, the living room was the
scene of a drunken "Capitol Hill" party, during which a grand
piano was pushed through the bay window.

The Brodys deserve credit for making a choice that is both good
for Hopkins, and brave. Here's wishing them happiness in their
new home!